TaraYou’ve started your freelance editing business. Congrats! You’re so excited to get clients and really grow this thing that you love.
But maybe you’re feeling stuck. You just don’t have the momentum, or you feel like it’s taking a lot longer than you thought it would.
I recently finished re-reading James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, and I knew I needed to share one of the sections because it was a lightbulb moment for me.
In the book, James Clear talks about motion vs. action. Motion is what I like to call “procrasti-learning.” As a freelance editor, I know you’re probably like me and love to procrasti-learn. We love to read all the books, take all the courses, follow all the people on social media…anything we can do to continue to learn, grow, and develop.
There’s nothing wrong with learning, but learning isn’t action. Learning is motion. It’s procrastinating from actually taking the action you need to take. It’s safe and it’s comfortable.
Action is where the fear of failure and the risk of failure come into play. We take all this time learning, but we never actually put it into action because it’s risky and because we think we might fail.
And this is why we sometimes get stuck.
If you’re feeling stuck, I want you to take a step back and ask yourself, “Why am I stuck? What isn’t happening that I want to happen?”
Maybe you’re not getting the right type of clients, or any clients. Or you’re simply not gaining traction from social media. Write it all down.
Then ask yourself, “Have I learned anything about these things? Was I “in motion” for any of these things?”
Lastly, ask yourself, “Did I take anything that I learned and put it into action?”
Maybe you did take action, but maybe you didn’t do it 100%. Maybe you only implemented a little bit to stay in your comfort zone. There are a lot of scary things we don’t want to do because there’s risk and fear involved.
You might still need to learn more before you can get into action on certain things, but the main thing that’s keeping you stuck is staying in motion instead of pushing past your comfort zone and getting into action.
If you still find yourself stuck and not able to move forward, a 1:1 coaching session with me could help. We can dive deeper into your current motion vs. action tasks and get you set on the right path!
